Becca Jane St Clair

Today (er, yesterday) was a friend’s birthday. A few weeks ago, she told me she was going to purchase a cake to celebrate with, and I said “no, I’m making you a cake”. And then I went on holiday to the US and promptly forgot until I looked at the calendar over the weekend where I had written “make Helen a cake” on Thursday!

So what to make? Like me, my friend is diabetic, so I sent her a text and asked her if she wanted a “good for us” cake or something gooey and naughty and gooey and naughty won out. She had no flavour preferences, so I started racking my brain for something interesting and I kept coming back to the Black Forest Gateau I made for a different friend’s birthday several years ago. The problem was, I really wasn’t in the mood to make a full on Gateau with layers of biscuit and cream, so I settled on somehow combining chocolate and cherries.

Well, this is a hard combination to find recipes for. Either the recipes called for loads of crazy ingredients (one recipe had both buttermilk and sour cream in it!) or they weren’t for a layer cake. I specifically had the idea in my head that there would be cherries IN the cake, between the layers, and on top. I also thought it would involve cherry pie filling and/or cherry jam as opposed to fresh cherries. I was right.

Scouring Pinterest, I came across a Betty Crocker recipe that I am almost ashamed to say is the recipe I settled on!

You Will Need:
1 box Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake Mix (they sell them now at Waitrose and probably a few other places)
21 oz cherry pie filling (in the US, this is one large can. In the UK, it took me about 1 2/3 tins. My kitchen scale had ounces on it as well as grams, or you can just eyeball it. 21 oz is approximately 600 grams)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 jar cherry jam or conserve
1 container glace or maraschino cherries
Chocolate frosting of your choice (store bought or homemade!)

-Preheat your oven to 175C and line the bottom of two 8″ round cake tins with parchment paper
-Ignore instructions on the back of the box
-Combine dry cake mix, eggs, pie filling, and vanilla. As you stir, the cherries will start to break up. This is fine.
-Divide batter between cake tins
-Bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean (unless you stab a cherry!)
-Cool cakes for about 15 minutes in the tin, remove from tins and cool for at least an additional hour. You don’t want the cakes to be warm when you put them together (unless you want runny jam in the middle)

-Place the first cake upside down on your serving plate and spread with cherry jam. I used about a half of the jar, you can use more or less. I also added the extra cherries leftover from the pie filling.
-Put the second cake on top of the jam.
-Scrape out the cherry pie filling tins and spread the leftover “jelly” on the top and sides of the cake.
-Spread your frosting all over the top and sides of the cake
-Decorate with glace cherries however you like.

I was told this cake was amazing, and the taste I had was really good. The cherry and chocolate flavours both really come through nicely.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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I know I haven’t updated in a while, and I’m hoping NaBloPoMo in November will jump start me, but in the meantime I thought I would write a post to expand on what I’ve been posting on Facebook.

Last night around 2 in the morning I had to go to A&E for my knee, but let me backtrack and tell you what happened….

My knee had been hurting for the past few days. I was chalking it up to the change in the weather (quite literally we went from the upper teens/lower 20s to single digits overnight) or maybe I was developing arthritis (I joked on FB that I was too young for arthritis), but while we were in the US we went to a train museum and when I was getting down off one of the engines it had a particularly high step and I remember telling Tim after I climbed down that my knee hurt and I wasn’t going to climb on any more trains. It might have hurt the following day and on-and-off for the rest of the trip, but it was never anything really horrible that a hot shower or regular pain relievers didn’t take care of.

Yesterday, the pain seemed to increase throughout the day and I actually wound up in bed with the bedwarmer as a heating pad earlier in the evening. I had plans that included getting up and showering before Tim got home from his overnight shift (because our boiler is in a closet in the same room as the bed is currently if I use the hot water while Tim is sleeping the noise of the boiler wakes him), then going back to sleep for an hour or two before being picked up for my chorus’ open workshop that took place today. That didn’t happen. Instead, when I went up the stairs to go to bed, my left knee completely gave way from underneath me after I turned the corner (we have a tight spiral staircase that turns back on itself on a landing 3/4 of the way up). I managed to pull myself up on the banister, and limped down the hallway and managed to get onto the bed, where I texted Tim and told him what happened.

Tim wrote back and asked me if I was in pain and I told him that the pain was making me cry, so he suggested ringing 111* to ask them for advice. The first guy I got was a call centre person with no medical training and he asked me all sorts of weird questions that had no relevance and in the end told me that since I wasn’t bleeding or feverish that I should wait and go see my GP on Monday. I asked him what I should do about the pain because it was making me cry and he transferred me to a nurse. The nurse advised going to A&E as soon as I was able because she suspected a torn ligament and said I would need an X-ray and strapping up. I rang Tim back and told him what was suggested and he said he would get home to take me as soon as he was able to get someone to take over where he was.

I think we got to A&E around 2AM. Surprisingly, the waiting area was pretty empty and I was told there were three people ahead of me after I went through triage and it wouldn’t be a long wait. But then we started hearing screaming coming from behind the door and a nurse came out and asked the receptionist if the police were at the hospital and then three carloads of police showed up! Yikes. Still don’t know what that was about, but when I was finally called back two police officers were stationed right near the entrance to the examining area.

The doctor I saw was an intern and he admitted to me that he had no experience with orthopedics. He bent my knee this way and that way and sideways and based on the crunch and crackle (seriously, my knee sounded like walking on gravel does) he determined that it probably wasn’t a ligament, but was a meniscus tear (cartilage) and that an x-ray wouldn’t help since cartilage doesn’t show up on an x-ray. So he told me to make an appointment with my GP on Monday because I would need physio and to stay off it for about a week….but he didn’t give me a brace or anything to keep it immobile. He also gave me a prescription for Diclofenac but told me the hospital pharmacy was closed for the night and I would have to take it to an after hours.

We left and headed for the Boots at the Carleton center only to find it completely dark and no afterhours window open. Puzzled, I fired up google to find out that at that particular time (nearly 5AM) there was not a single pharmacy open in Lincoln. Nice. So we headed home and I took some Naproxen I brought back from the US.

I tried to get comfortable in bed and immediately put myself in pain when I tried to get into my usual sleeping position (knees slightly bent). I still had my knee brace from 1998 when I had surgery on my right knee, so I had Tim get it out for me and I stuck in on my left knee. I was asleep, finally, by 7AM. I woke up around 10 to go to the loo and with the knee brace the steps were a piece of cake. When I woke up again around 3PM I took off the brace (since the hospital told me I did’t need one) and I was in a ton of pain going down the steps. I think I will be asking my GP for a brace on Monday. While the one I had worked, it wasn’t designed for the left side so all the fastenings are on the wrong side.

So I’m pretty immobile for the weekend until I can get in with my GP on Monday. I’m going to go back upstairs now and get into bed. I have my laptop and my kindle, both with BBC iPlayer and LoveFilm to keep me company.

Oh, and PS to my American friends – My trip to A&E didn’t cost me a cent. I’ll only have to pay for my prescription, but I pre-pay for those (unlimited prescriptions for about £12/mo) so I won’t even have to hand over any cash when I pick it up, either.

—
*111 is a service in the UK that replaced NHS Direct. Basically, you can ring 111 when your GP office is closed for advice and they will help you determine if you need to go to A&E, an after hours GP, or wait until the morning when your GP office is open. For more information: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/Emergencyandurgentcareservices/Pages/NHS-111.aspx

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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On a group that I’m part of, an American about to move to the UK asked “What are the top 5 things we should bring?” After some consideration, this is the list I came up with based on my own moving experience in 2009 and my current life here.

1 – US measuring cups, spoons, and a pyrex jug. While you’re still sorting out the Metric system in the kitchen, it’s nice to know you can use your old standby recipes. I got rid of most of my cookbooks before I moved and only kept the ones that were book tie-ins (I have the Anne of Green Gables cookbook and the Little House cookbook) and good old Betty. [I still use my US measuring cups. There are some recipes that I just can’t translate into Metric and they are old favourites!]

2 – a 9×13 cake pan. I finally gave up and my mom brought me a pan when she visited as the only place I could find one was Lakeland and they wanted £30 for it! Also things like Bundt pans are a bit pricey here. But if you’re not a baker, ignore this.

3 – Die hard favourite items. I spent money on shipping 20 boxes of things over and I do not regret it at all. I even shipped (in a box) a massive 4 foot by 3 foot rug I had in my bedroom in the US and I’m so happy I did. I also brought a few throw pillows and my Penn State stadium blankets. One word of advice: If you are bringing ANY family crystal or dishes put these in your carry-on. I had loads of stuff get smashed by the shipping company and that was with me carefully wrapping things and marking the box as “fragile keep on top”. But the things I put in my carry-on wheeled suitcase all arrived in one piece. I also had my husband take a few of my dolls back with him after we got married, so I have part of my massive doll collection in the living room (I got rid of the rest of them and only kept significant ones) I packed up quite a bit of my kitchen items, even though a lot are going to be available here because it’s nice to use things that are familiar. Along this same line: family heirlooms, even the odd things. For example, I brought along this set of metal bowls and cups from my Nanny’s house because they remind me of her, my pappy, my aunt and uncle. My mom gave me a few pieces of her Corningware before I moved so I have pieces that I remember being used when I grew up. I also packed a few favourite mugs. You’ll probably buy loads more, but there’s something familiar about using the big purple coffee mug I had in my college dorm room! I also brought along some of my knick-knacks (got rid of the rest!) since I was moving into my husband’s house and I wanted to be able to look around and see a bit of me.

4 – Medical records. I went to my doctor’s office about a month before I moved and for $10 they gave me my entire file. Usually they like to send these directly to the doctors, but when I explained that I was moving overseas, they were more than happy to give me a copy. It took a few days as they had to get it all photocopied, but it was worth it to turn it over to the GP here….and the GP here had everything typed into the system, so they can go back and look at records from before I lived here. Also, 2 month supply of any prescription you are currently on as it might take you that long to get settled with a GP and get sorted for UK equivalents. While we’re talking about records, it’s best to make sure you pack all your important family docs – expired passports, marriage certificates, birth certificates, diplomas, etc. I also have my US tax records going back to 1997, but that was probably overkill. [I really can’t stress this enough. Especially if you have an on-going medical condition. You also might want to write down family medical histories for your parents & grandparents just in case.]

5 – favourite clothing pieces. Bras & Knickers. Jeans. While fashion is a little different here, it’s still nice to have old favourites. Bras & Knickers simply because it might take you awhile to find brands you love and it will be trial and error to find ones that fit and ones you like. Jeans…..I still haven’t really found jeans here that I like the fit of so I tend to buy a few pairs when I’m in the US. Hoodies are always useful no matter what time of year it is, and I love wearing my “Jersey Girl” and Penn State hoodies. Comfortable shoes. Shoe sizes in the UK are different so again, just until you are more comfortable here it’s best to have plenty of shoe options. Also, you’re likely to do a lot more walking in the UK than in the US, so comfy shoes for walking are a must…as are waterproof shoes!

Now onto things you shouldn’t pack, don’t need to bring, or should bring in moderation:

1 – Books. No, don’t get up in arms with me over this. I love to read, but I managed to get my collection down to five boxes….and of the five, based on what books I still have I could have only taken two. I kept anything that was irreplaceable or special. Childhood series (Little House, Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew) came along. US editions of Harry Potter, antique books, and books that had sentimental value came along. Everything else can be replaced by visiting charity shops and used book stores.

2 – DVDs and Videos. Don’t even bother with VHS videos at all, they will not play here. As far as DVDs go… you will first need to hack a UK player, but that’s not hard. Only bring DVDs that have meaning to you or were limited editions and then mark the spines so you know they are R1. I bought little green stickers at Wilkinson’s. Just like books, you can pick up DVDs for pretty cheap at charity shops!

3 – Food. Unless it’s something you know you NEED nearly every day, don’t bother. Many items are available here either at the regular shops or specialty shops. Sure, you’ll pay out the nose for some of the things, but then you can treat them as “treats”. Part of the fun of living in a new country is discovering the food! I will admit to having peanut butter on subscription service through Amazon and getting a steady stream of ranch dressing and instant iced tea, though!

4 – Toiletries. With the exception of a month’s worth until you find new UK products or unless you have specific needs (allergies?), this is also something I wouldn’t bother with bringing along. A lot of the major brands (Dove, Pantene, Herbal Essence, Olay, Neutrogena, etc) are here and do you really want to be stuck in a situation where you are constantly filling your suitcases with face wash or shampoo when you go back to the US for a visit? There are some great UK products here, you just have to be patient while you look for them. You’ll get used to the spray deodorant. I promise.

I can’t think of a fifth.

What would be on your list?

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated below and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

*

Tour our caravan here:

(just in case it hasn’t embedded, you can watch it here: http://youtu.be/cgqVuxAFtrg. I can’t see the video when I preview my blog post, so I have no idea if it’s me or wordpress or youtube that’s having the problem….)

My husband and I are about to be the proud owners of a 1995 touring caravan! Last Summer, we borrowed a caravan from Tim’s parents and over the weekend they offered to sell it to us as they don’t feel they will use it again, and they know we really liked using it. So as soon as we can find storage for it and take possession of it (and erm, pay them!) it’s ours!! This isn’t to say that we don’t like tent camping….I LOVED our holiday in Austria in our tent. Our two weeks in Wales in a tent? Not so much thanks to the rain. But last year having the caravan was fantastic. It was so nice to have a place that was dry to sit in/eat in/read in/sleep in, and a place where you could turn on HEAT when you were soaked through! It was also nice to have dedicated electricity for things like a kettle and fridge and oh yeah, we had a stove. The caravan even has a toilet with a shower, but neither one of us needed to use it (we were pitched up close enough to the toilet blocks we just walked over to those even in the middle of the night).

So, now that we have a caravan, I thought I would start looking at photos of caravans online to get some ideas for better ways to organize things (permanently) as well as give it a little personalization. Pinterest is full of great ideas and woah are there some amazing caravans out there! Check out this one**:

Now, that’s a little too busy for me. I also liked this one***:

But that one is probably a little too pink for Tim!

I think it will take awhile to actually do anything to the caravan, but if I can organize myself and get it done, it could become quite nice. A few things I think we need to consider for the future include painting the interior walls, making or getting new curtains made, and re-covering the cushions. I don’t have any ideas on what colours we’ll use yet, but I’m sure we will pick something we both like. I’m sort of leaning towards red, but the kitchen area is green and I wouldn’t want it to look like Christmas year-round! I can’t see us doing any of it until it’s absolutely needed, but there’s no reason we can’t do a little decorating in it now.

One thing I learned from all my browsing, is that a caravan needs cushions:

^

^^

Doesn’t that one look like it belongs in a Cath Kidston catalogue?

Cushions, I can do. We already (of course) have our pillows in the caravan, but it might be nice to be able to put the pillows away in the wardrobe during the day and have a few throw cushions on the two sofas. I know how to sew, so I could make my own out of fabric scraps, or I could buy pre-made covers or even whole cushions. I’m going to have to think about this and pick something neutral for now and then jazz things up later. Maybe I’ll buy some cheap cushions for now that can be recovered later.

I did, however, get some great ideas for what to do with the (very small) amount of wall space. Most of the caravan is made up of windows or cabinets, but there’s bits of wall here and there.

^^^

I think maybe a few framed postcards from where we travel would look cute on the wall. I read on an RV site that you can use sticky backed velcro to keep things attached to the walls while travelling, so I’ll have to do that with the pictures.

I also want to take a cookie sheet and make a backsplash for the wall between the cabinet and fridge, and then paint it with chalkboard paint. We collected a few magnets while we were away last year and I kept sticking them to the tea tin so we wouldn’t lose them. And having a little board where we could stick up important things (like tickets) or make notes on would be helpful.

I plan on purchasing a bunch of command hooks as well and will have a play to see where the hooks can go. I already purchased some over the caravan door hooks (ages ago!) so we can at least have some hooks on the inside of the bathroom door instead of tossing the towels on the toilet and the bathrobes in the bottom of the wardrobe.

And the outside! Some people go all out on the exteriors as well!

+

++

But something tells me Tim would not let me paint our caravan purple OR polka dots. So I’d settle for some decals. We could get a train, or some tracks, or even some music notes. But we need to do something to personalize it.

We have lots to do before we start thinking about that. We have to take possession of the caravan and clean out anything Tim’s parents want back/we don’t want and add in some of our own camping gear that will live in the caravan, plus make a list of things it needs. We need to practice hooking it up to the car, too. We’ve only hooked it up a handful of times, and we had help from Tim’s dad a few of those times! There’s loads of instructions for what to do when we get to a site from setting the brake, hooking up the electrics, getting the water pump working, hooking up the waste water receptacle, turning on the gas…..

Ah, I can’t wait. Time to research local storage facilities….and try to plan a weekend away!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated below and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

*Credit unknown, found it on Pinterest. If this is yours, let me know so I can credit you!
**Photo credit: PurpleFuzzyMittens
***Photo credit: Cornbread and Beans Quilting Co
^Photo credit: My Vintage Caravan
^^Credit unknown, found it on Pinterest. If this is yours, let me know so I can credit you!
^^^Credit unknown, found it on Pinterest. If this is yours, let me know so I can credit you!
+Photo credit: Shannon Christensen
++Credit unknown, found it on Pinterest. If this is yours, let me know so I can credit you!

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I can’t take credit for this recipe. Credit belongs to Peace, Love, and Low Carb, but I modified her recipe to fit to what’s available in the UK and to my personal preferences. This is a great low-carb dinner when paired with a salad!

You Will Need:

2 peppers per person (I used green and red. I think the yellow or orange ones would be too sweet)
8-10 slices of roast beef (I used Tesco Finest), cut into thin strips (kitchen scissors makes this easy)
shredded mozzarella
300g (aprox) mushrooms, diced (I used my hand held Tupperware dicer)
1 container tomato passata (I think they are 500g in a carton)
Oregano

1. Pre-heat oven to 175C
2. Slice off the tops of your peppers and remove the seeds as well as as much of the membrane as you can. If your peppers won’t stand up, you might want to prop them up in ramekins or in a casserole dish with sides.
3. Using your biggest frying pan (I use my wok), sauteé the mushrooms in a little olive oil until they are soft (about 10 minutes).
4. Add the strips of roast beef and cook an additional 10 minutes.
5. Add a sprinkle of Oregano to your passata and add the passata to the mixture. Cook until bubbly.
6. Sprinkle a little mozzarella in the bottom of each pepper cup and ladle in the meat/mushroom/sauce mixture. Top each pepper with some more cheese.
7. Bake 15-20 minutes until cheese is melted and golden brown.

YUM.

I made 2 peppers for myself and used half a baguette to make open-faced sandwiches for Tim (he doesn’t like peppers and isn’t eating low-carb) and there is still loads of mixture leftover to save for another day, so I bet this would easily fill 6-8 peppers. Each pepper has approximately two soup ladles of mixture in it.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

I needed a gift idea for my Mother-in-law. She’s hard to shop for because she will always tell us she doesn’t want anything! I decided to make her some peppermint foot soak. I would make some for my mom, too, but I don’t think a bag full of white powder would make it though customs, do you?

It’s really easy to make, too! I ordered all my supplies off eBay, and I have more than enough for several more batches. Buying the baking soda/bicarbonate of soda in bulk online will save you a bundle. I think I spent around £10 for the supplies, but that included essential oils for other projects, too.

You will need:

1 Cup Epsom Salts
1 Cup Baking Soda or Bicarbonate
Essentail Oil (I used peppermint and eucalyptus, but you can use whatever you want)

Mix together the Salt and Soda and add however many drops of oil you’d like (I probably used about a dozen of each). Stir or shake t distribute the oil. If you can’t smell the oil, add a few more drops.

Store in a clean jar. For gift giving, you could make a label for the jar and some instructions (sprinkle in a footbath or tub). I also included a list of ingredients so the receiver would know if they were intolerant of any of the items. I used a jar that some Stevia came in because I liked the shape of the jar and the colour of the lid.

The Eucalyptus is also great if you’ve got a cold. I just added a few drops to my bath and it helped to clear my nose!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

The last Christmas recipe I have to share with you all uses Carbquik. I did not make this cake for Christmas, but I made it for New Year’s Day when Tim and I ate our Christmas dinner (since we had dinner on Christmas Day with his parents). I found this recipe for Low-Carb Pound Cake on the Low Carb Friends website, where it says this contains 1g of carbs per serving. I don’t like the taste of Carbquik by itself, so I replaced part of the Carbquik. If you wanted to make this with just Carbquik, you would need 3 and a half cups of it. The way I made it has a few more carbs than that per serving, but I don’t know exact amounts.

Low Carb Pound Cake

You will need:
1 1/2 Cup Carbquik
1 Cup Wholegrain Flour
1/2 Cup Ground Almonds (or Almond Meal/Almond Flour)
1/2 Cup Coconut Flour
3/4 Cup Splenda for Baking
3/4 Cup Butter (softened)
200g Cream Cheese (one pack/8 oz)
6 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
Pinch of Salt

-Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
-Butter the sides of a Bundt pan (I’m sure other cake pans work just as well!)
-Combine Carbquik, Flour, Ground Almonds, Coconut Flour, and salt in a small bowl
-In a larger bowl cream together Splenda for Baking, butter, and cream cheese.
-Add eggs one at a time to liquid mixture. Add vanilla.
-Slowly add dry mix to the wet until it is well blended.
-Pour the mix into the cake pan and bake for 45-60 minute or until a toothpick comes out clean.

We had this for Strawberry Shortcake with some fresh berries and cream. It’s so tasty and low-carb that you don’t feel guilty sneaking a piece for breakfast the next morning!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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Another big part of Christmas dinner is of course, the dessert. I had already made the Christmas Pudding full of sugar and booze, so I wanted to try to make something with less sugar. I really wanted to make a cheesecake, so I searched for several sugar free versions to create mine. Unfortunately, the topping is NOT sugar free as I could not find any sugar free pie filling, but I DO have a recipe for making your own sugar free cherry topping I will try out some other time. I can justify the sugar in the topping only because you really don’t eat that much topping anyway.

For the Crust —
2 Cups Ground Almonds (sometimes called almond flour or almond meal)
4 TBS Butter, melted
2 TBS Splenda for Baking

For the Filling —
600g Cream Cheese (3 packages) – room temperature
3 Eggs
1/2 TBS Vanilla
1/2 TBS lemon juice
1 Cup Splenda for Baking

For the Topping —
1 Can pie filling, any flavour. Sugar Free if you can find it

-Preheat the oven to 200C.
-Combine the ingredients for the crust and press into bottoms and side of your pie dish.
-Bake crust for 12-15 minutes until it is firm and golden.
-Remove from oven and set crust to one side.
-Cream together cream cheese and Splenda for baking.
-Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.
-Add lemon juice and vanilla.
-Pour filling into cooked crust and place in the oven (still at 200C)
-As soon as you shut the oven door, immediately reduce temperature to 125C. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN WHILE BAKING THIS. Alternatively, you can use a water bath.
-Bake for 60-90 minutes. If your oven has a glass door, check by sight. The cheesecake should form a mound and look firm. You can open the door after an hour to check on the cake. A cake tester inserted should come out fairly clean, with bits of firm cheesecake clinging to it. If the cheesecake is still runny, leave it in the oven for additional time.
-Let the cheesecake cool completely before adding the topping.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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When my family bakes Christmas cookies, we always made more than one kind, so of course I wanted some variety. I am a big fan of the Scottish Shortbread you can get in the tins from Marks and Spencers, so I decided that would be my second type of cookie. I scoured the web, and I found a recipe posted by someone who calls themselves “mrsnorris”. Now, whether they intended to be a Harry Potter reference or their name really *is* Mrs Norris, the fact that it could be HP related instantly caught my attention to base my recipe off of.

You will need:
160g Butter, softened (I used Stork)
4 TBS Splenda for Baking (the original recipe calls for regular Splenda, but I find the Splenda for Baking doesn’t leave an after taste the way regular Splenda does, but feel free to use the sweetener of your choice)
100g White flour
100g Wholegrain flour (my wholegrain was also self-raising, but I don’t think this matters)
1/8 tsp Salt

-Preheat the oven to 180C and line your baking trays with parchment paper.
-Cream together butter and Splenda for Baking until fluffy.
-Slowly add flour and salt.
-Work dough into a ball.
-Flour your worktop and gently press (or roll) the dough out until it is about a half inch thick.
-Use a biscuit cutter (or shapes) to cut out the biscuits, re-rolling in between. You should be able to fit a dozen per cookie sheet. If you don’t have any cutters you could use a glass dipped in flour or just cut them into fingers with a knife. You will need to re-flour your worktop each time you re-roll the dough.
-Optional: you could brush the tops of each cookie with some egg and sprinkle a tiny bit of dyed* Splenda for Baking to imitate sprinkles, but they are just as good plain.
-Refrigerate each baking tray for 15 minutes before baking (I did this by putting the first sheet in and setting the timer. When the timer went off, they went into the oven and the next tray went into the fridge)
-Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Keep an eye on them as if they overbake they get very crumbly (as we discovered!)

Once again, these were a big hit and no one could tell they were sugar free! Just makes sure you tell people ahead of time as some people are intolerant to artificial sweeteners.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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My first Christmas dealing with my diabetes, and I think I did okay. I had some mince pies ( but never more than one in a single day), I had a few glasses of wine (again, never more than one), Ate a few small pieces of chocolate (Tim bought me an advent calendar, but I only ate the chocolate on a few days), and I indulged in a small piece of the Christmas Pudding I had made (just to taste it as I had never even had it!). But I also only drank sugar free fizzy drinks or slim tonic water, ate low-carb, and avoided the starchy foods – no potatoes, parsnips, carrots, etc. So overall, I did pretty good.

Making Christmas Cookies are a HUGE deal to me as it’s been a family tradition since forever. Fortunately, my mom sent me some Splenda Blend for Baking and some Splenda Brown. Both these products I have been unable to locate in the UK, but you can order them through importers on eBay (though it will be pricey, it’s worth it!)

The first thing I needed to do was bake some chocolate chip cookies as those are my favourite cookie of all-time and Mom also got me some sugar free chocolate chips! However, don’t go crazy looking for them. I compared the bag of SF chips to a bag of Toll House, a container of dark chocolate chunks from Waitrose, and to some plain chocolate chips from Asda and they all contained around the same amount of sugar per 100g. After I added the bag of SF chips I decided it needed more chips anyway, so my cookies wound up with a combination of Hershey Sugar Free, Toll House Semi-Sweet, and Waitrose dark chocolate chunks. They were amazing and no one could tell they were sugar free!

(This recipe was modified off the back of the Hershey Sugar Free Chocolate Chips, so is measured using US measurements)

You will Need:
1 Cup white flour
1 Cup wholegrain flour
1 tsp baking soda (or 2 tsp Bicarb of Soda if you don’t have access to American baking soda)
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Cup butter (Soft – I used stork out of a tub)
1/3 Cup Splenda for Baking
1/3 Cup packed Splenda Brown Sugar Blend
2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 Cups chocolate chips or chunks (sugar free, semi-sweet, dark, or plain. Using milk chocolate will add more sugar)

-Preheat the oven to 200C and line your baking trays with parchment paper.
-Mix together the flours, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
-In a larger bowl, beat butter, the two Splendas, eggs, and vanilla.
-Slowly mix in the flour.
-using a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate chips/chunks.
-Drop by teaspoons onto your baking sheets. You should be able to get 12 on a sheet.
-Bake each sheet for 9-12 minutes until cookies are golden.
-Cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then continue to cool on a baking tray.

Makes about 3 and a half dozen soft cookies, depending on how big you make them. I went through THREE batches of them this season because everyone loved them so much.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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2012 Reading Challenge

Rebecca has
completed her goal of reading 144 books in 2012!

hide

227 of 144 (157%)

view books

I’ve always been a big reader, ever since I was a child. In fact, I tried to convince my parents I knew how to read when I was three or four by reciting my favourite bedtime story. And I might have convinced my mom I could read if I hadn’t forgotten to turn the page! Before I could read on my own and my parents would tell me to pick a bedtime story, I would hand them a stack. Once I learned to read, I hit the ground running. I was a fast reader, and I was reading well above my grade level. I can still remember a March of Dimes campaign when I was 8 or 9 and one of the adults at my church offered to sponsor me. Most people had sponsored me for 10 cents/book and he thought that wasn’t high enough so he pledged $1/book…..by the end of the month, he owed me $100! When we went to Florida for a family vacation (by car!) when I was turning 10, I was set up in the backseat with one of our American Tourister duffel bags filled to the brim with books. I finished all of them before we got to Florida (and from New Jersey, it was a long trip!). I used to get in trouble with my English teachers (anyone remember when it was called Language Arts?) for doing reports on grade-level appropriate books because they knew I could read at a higher level….but it was hard for my parents and teachers to find me age appropriate books. Once I finished Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, and the Jane Austen collection I moved on to reading Gone with the Wind when I was 11, and I started the Flowers in the Attic series when I was 12. I had read the complete Longfellow, Blake, and Tennyson by the time I was 15. I was and always will be a readaholic.

A trip to the bookstore always made my mom shudder. Stacks and Stacks of books – the latest Babysitters Club book, Sweet Valley Twins or High, Friends 4-ever, Sleepover Club….I read them all in lightning speed.

As I got older, my reading tapered off largely because I couldn’t afford to keep myself in new books. I re-read my favourites over and over and relied on finding books at the library or from friends.

…and then I met Tim, and he introduced me to the town of Hay-on-Wye, a small Welsh village FULL of used bookstores. I was in HEAVEN.

The biggest problem with books though is that you have to have a place to store them. Anyone who has been to our house knows that we are getting short on space. The other problem is that some larger books get really heavy as I hold them, like any of the Harry Potter books after book 3!

Enter the Kindle.

Tim and I decided for our second anniversary last year that we would buy Kindles and we purchased Kindle Keyboards with 3G. The 3G meant that we would be able to access Amazon from anywhere to download new books.

I decided to set myself a goal to read 12 books a month in 2012. As you can see from the graph above, I read nearly 100 more than that. Because my Kindle goes everywhere with me as it’s lighter than a paperback. Waiting at the bus stop, riding the bus, waiting for food to arrive at a cafe, while drinking a cup of coffee….I was reading. And the nice thing is Amazon has loads of Kindle books for less than £1 or free!

And with the free books, I have enjoyed books I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and everyone has a built-in birthday and christmas present for me with getting me Amazon gift cards!

This year, I received the Kindle Fire for Christmas. The downside is the Fire doesn’t have 3G service, but it is basically a mini tablet. I’m in love with it. I’ll still keep my Kindle Keyboard though, particularly to take camping with us — and that’s another thing. The year before we had the Kindles, I read 7 books while we were camping and we had to go out and buy more books. This past year with my Kindle, I read over 20!

Having the Kindle has changed my reading habits back to the way they were when I was younger, and I love it!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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Testing posting from my kindle fire.

This year, to make things easier on my mother-in-law, the family is doing Christmas pot luck style. On Tuesday, my Sister-in-law asked if we knew what the plans were and when we said no, she explained and then asked me if I could be assigned the desserts/pudding. I agreed, and so the brain started to churn…

When we got home, I asked Tim what he thought I should make and after a few suggestions got thrown out, Christmas Pudding was brought up. Now, it’s not really a “family favourite”, but it is Tim’s favourite. Most years we’ll pick up a few minis for Tim to have throughout the season and his mum will indulge him and get a pre-made one to go alongside whatever other dessert she’s made. Since the only thing I am responsible for this year is dessert, I have decided to make Christmas pud from scratch….with a little help from my friends.

I posted to Facebook, and my friend Vicky responded with some suggestions and answered all my questions. Some people make their puddings up to a YEAR before Christmas, and some only do theirs a few days in advance. I have decided to make mine this weekend, giving it plenty of time to ferment.

First, I needed a recipe. I have one from Jamie Oliver but no one I know has made it and I wanted a tried-and-true recipe. My friend Nicky linked me to recipes from the BBC and Delia, but she hadn’t tested those, either. Vicky came through for me again, and suggested a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I’ve never heard of him, but Vicky’s used his recipes in the past, so I was off to Google.

The next day I had Tim drop me off at Waitrose, armed with my grocery list. The most puzzling thing to find? the Brandy and Ale. There are LOADS of options. Again, I heeded Vicky’s advice and grabbed a hobgoblin to use.

Once home, I began measuring out the fruit — all 900g of it. It wouldn’t fit in my bowl by itself, let alone once I mix in everythng else! A check of the recipe shows that it makes two puds, so I’m going to half the recipe (I will post it below) where appropriate. Oh, and I may have just dumped 200ml of Brandy on the fruit even though the 2 pud recipe calls for only HALF the brandy (100ml)….I hope it’s not swimming in extra brandy!

As it turns out, I didn’t have to worry about extra brandy. A family emergency meant that my fruit soaked for 36 hours and they soaked up nearly all the brandy in the bowl.

I dutifully halved the recipe (that leaves a LOT left in a pint bottle of ale!) and the resulting mix was hideous. I wrapped the top in clingfilm and am leaving it alone for overnight…

The next morning, I peeled back the cling film and the mixture looked decidedly dry, so I gave it a quick stir and topped it up with a glug from the ale bottle.

I packed it into my buttered basin and I was shocked to discover I have LOADS of pudding mix leftover. I might wind up with two after all, or maybe I can do a mini pud for a taste test.

I prepped the crock pot for steaming, and made a single size pupping to cook on the stovetop.

the mini pud was a FLOP. I only steamed it for about an hour/hour and a half because the instructions on one of the mini puddings from M&S say to steam for 1/2 hour, so I thought as those are pre-cooked and the instruction for re-heating a full-size pud are to steam it for half the time you originally steamed it for that I would do it for an hour. Probably more like an hour and a bit. Tim didn’t like it. He made faces when he tasted it….and I made a face when I tasted it as I could taste the raisins and suet. Ew. So my conclusion is that I didn’t steam it for long enough so as there is LOADS of mix leftover, I’m going to try another mini pudding tomorrow. But the big one is still in the crock pot (been cooking since 4PM, so now about 6 hours). The water level is fine and apparently you can’t oversteam, so I think I might leave it go overnight or at least until I wake up in the middle of the night to use the loo.

I set my alarm for 7, but I woke up around 5, and then again at 6, so I decided to get up and check it. The downstairs smells “like Christmas” as some of the other blogs suggest and peeking through the small gap of the foil I can see a dark colour – much darker than the mini pud I turned out yesterday. The water level has barely moved (though I did top it up last night a little higher than the original instructions say to), so I flipped the crock to high for the last hour, and got to work making another tester mini pud.

And after 15 hours of steaming….I declare it done. you know how you’re supposed to make a handle out of string? Yeah, my string got wet and HOT. Owwwww. The pudding is now cooling in it’s basin. I noticed some water has gotten in through the foil around the bottom, and the foil that was submerged in the water has gone black. Mini pudding is still steaming away.

You can find the original recipe I followed here and the original crock pot instructions here, but here’s my modified recipe (remember: I cut the original in half and still have enough filling for 2 puddings and 2 mini puddings. It’s possible I have a small basin, but it looks like a normal one….)

Hugh calls his recipe Grandma Jane’s, so here is Rebecca Jane’s

You will need:

450g dried vine fruits (Waitrose sells a bag labeled vine fruits, otherwise a combination of raisins and sultanas will do. I also tossed in a handful of mixed peel and some craisins)
200ml brandy
55g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
85g suet (I used 30% less fat veggie suet)
85g dark muscovado sugar (aka brown sugar)
20g flaked almonds
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp marmalade
110g fresh white breadcrumbs (This equaled about 4 white finger rolls. I blitzed them with my stick blender to get a fine crumb)
2 eggs, whisked
150ml ale or stout (I used Hobgoblins). (You mght need extra, so don’t go drinking the rest yet)
Butter

Other things you need:
Pudding basin
Parchment Paper
Aluminum to me, Aluminium to some foil
string
2 mixing bowls
crock pot
boiled water
heat-resistant cereal bowl or saucer

Step One: Put the fruit in a bowl and cover with 200ml of brandy. Cover with clingfilm and leave overnight. Mine wound up soaking for 36 hours due to a family emergency.

The Next Day

Step Two: Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. It’s a good idea to tick off the ingredients as you add them so you don’t get confused as the list is long. Mix in the rest of the items in this order: suet, fruit (add any dregs of brandy not absorbed), almonds, lemon zest & juice, marmalade, breadcrumbs, beaten eggs, ale. cover with clingfilm and let the mixture rest overnight.

Day Three

Check your mix. Give it a stir. If it looks too dry, add a splash more of ale.

Step Three: Butter your pudding basin. Cut a round out of parchment paper that fits the bottom of the basin, put that on top of the butter and then butter the paper, too. Fill basin with mix (I filled mine as high as a half inch from the top).

Step Four: Now, here’s where it gets tricky. You have to prepare the pudding for it’s steam bath. Take some parchment paper and make a pleat in it (fold it like a Z). Put the pleated paper on top of your pudding basin, and use string to tie the paper down. Trim off the excess paper. Next, you will need to use your Aluminum foil and if you are cooking this in the crock pot, you will want to completely wrap your pudding basin (save for a very small gap at the top) in foil. To make it easier to lift, you can make a handle by tying string package-style around the basin and leaving a loop on the top to lift with.

Step Five: Boil the kettle. Place your cereal bowl or saucer upside down in the crock pot and put the pudding on top of it. Check to make sure the lid will fit securely and that the pudding is not touching the walls of the crock pot. Add boiling water to the crock pot until it reaches 3/4 of the way up the pudding basin. Cover and cook on HIGH heat for 4 hours, LOW heat for 10, and switch it back to HIGH for the last hour. you should check the water levels about halfway through, but as I steamed mine on low overnight I topped up the water before I went to bed and it was fine.

Step Six: Carefully lift the pudding out of the crock pot by the string and set to one side. Be careful as water may have accumulated between the foil and basin. Allow to cool, then carefully unwrap the pudding. Poke holes in the top with a fork and pour on a few more tablespoons of brandy or ale. Tightly wrap in clingfilm and store in a cool, dry place (NOT the fridge) until Christmas day. I wrapped mine in two layers of clingfilm, a layer of foil, and put the whole thing in a Zipper-topped bag.

If you want to follow tradition, you can place foil-wrapped coins into the pudding before re-heating.

To re-heat on Christmas day you can re-wrap your pudding in an additional layer of clingfilm and then foil and steam in the crockpot for two and a half hours on high or you can microwave it to warm it up.

To serve: heat a ladle of brandy over a gas stove top (or heat in a pan). Carefully light the brandy on fire and tip over the pudding once at the dinner table.

Christmas Pudding is best served with brandy butter or creame. I bought mine pre-made at Waitrose, so I don’t have a recipe to share.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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[image from: http://www.janejohnsonphotography.com/]

Sometimes I like to imagine what a magazine spread on my outfit would look like. Today, mine would look something like this:

Shirt by Monsoon, on clearance £10
Vest (Camisole), Bra, Knickers, and Socks by M&S £8/2, £22/2, £1.50, and £6/2
Jeans by Dorothy Perkins. eBay £7
Jumper (Sweater) by Per Una (M&S). Cancer Research UK Charity Shop £5
Boots by Clarks. eBay £5.

So the most expensive item I’m wearing today? My bra. LOL But the shirt would have been £40, the jeans £30, the jumper £60 and the shoes £50 if I had bought everything at full retail price. I <3 charity shops, clearance sales, and eBay. With my on-going weight loss I have been shopping charity shops, jumble sales, eBay, and online swapping/shopping groups (on facebook and livejournal). They have been a godsend. I purchased four pairs of jeans (2 are Dorothy Perkins, 2 are Marks & Sparks) for less than the cost of one pair (though I did need to shorten them), countless tops from Dorothy Perkins, M&Co, Monsoon, Miss Selfridge, Per Una, etc. etc. for again, the cost of one top (maybe one and half), and I even managed to score an amazing M&Co silver sparkle dress I wore to a friend’s wedding for probably 10% of the cost of it brand new.

If I’m shopping at a charity shop or jumble sale, I always go for branded items and stay away from items sold by Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys, and Primark (because the quality isn’t very good, and usually it’s just as cheap to buy new from those places). I always look over the items carefully, checking to make sure there are no pulls, rips, or holes in the item, making sure zippers work and all buttons are attached. If there is a problem, I look to see if it’s fixable. One time, the person on the till noticed a cardigan I wanted had a (fixable) hole in it and knocked it down to £2. I rarely try thing on in the shop because the prices are so low I don’t mind passing the items on to other people, but most shops do have an area to try something on if you are so inclined and also offer a return policy.

Purchasing items off eBay or other online communities gets trickier. I tend to read the descriptions well and examine all the photos. I trust that the sellers will indicate if something has a rip or stain simply because they do not want negative feedback. I also base if something will fit me off of what size I already own of that brand. I’ve only had two instances where that hasn’t worked, and it was due to the fabric of the item. Fortunately, many eBay sellers are willing to let you return items that do not fit.

And when I shrink down further and need smaller sizes I can re-donate the clothing to a charity shop, jumble sale, or I can try to re-sell the items myself. Win-win.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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I logged into wordpress this morning and noticed the top line there and smiled. Back when I started this blog I installed a little widget called “Hello, Dolly” which did nothing other than display a random line from the song “Hello, Dolly” across the top. I loved it because the first musical I had ever been in was in fact, “Hello, Dolly!” and when I first landed on the internet in 1993, I picked Minnie Fay (one of the secondary lead characters) as my handle, and I kept Minnie Fay until I was 23. I think I even still have access to my old email account.

Seeing that made me smile and think, yeah. This is what I should be doing. I should be writing daily. Blogging as often as I can. I was going to do NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo, but I fractured my wrist towards the end of October which put a halt to writing.

I’ve not posted since September….and it’s not because I haven’t done things. On the contrary, I’ve been quite busy! I just never bothered to blog for some reason and I am going to try to rectify that. Maybe I needed that time away. I’ve also not been updating LiveJournal or keeping up with email.

Even though the paralympics were in September, I will be blogging about it. And our trip to Welshpool, and other assorted things I’ve no blogged about yet. I’ll have to make a list!

I’m back where I belong now.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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I possibly owe an apology to the author of What the F, UK?. A link to her blog was shared on one of the Ex-pat groups on FB and while there were loads of comments on facebook, I think I was the only one who went to her blog and left her a comment.

I wasn’t myself yesterday. As my friend Brigette said about me, I’m usually not that mean…and I didn’t intend to BE mean. I certainly didn’t expect her to go and mark her blog as private or for a comment to pop up on another ex-pat group (by someone unrelated?) claiming that we were “poor desperate housewives” living in abject poverty!

I can’t access the original post any more because she changed her blog to private, but for whatever reason, it rubbed me the wrong way. I think it was the general tone of her post, the attitude I saw in her post, or her use of sarcastic quotation marks. And I left a comment.

It may have been slightly snarky. I went through her long list of “things that are wrong with the UK” that she had written out in a numbered list and I made my own numbered list in response. Most of her complaints I was able to point out that the “missing” thing was present in the UK…though I suppose I shouldn’t have told her that if she didn’t like living in the UK she should go back to the US. ooops.

So I do apologize. I think that had I not been in a bad mood, I could have written a much nicer reply and addressed her problems with the UK in a better way and maybe even extended the arm of friendship.

Will she ever see this? If she’s anything like me, she would have “stalked” me online and found her way to my blog, so I hope she has seen this and I hope she knows that I didn’t mean to be so snarky and that if she needs another American to talk to, she would be welcomed into any of our ex-pat groups on facebook.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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Yesterday, my tesco picker forgot the difference between white bread and malt bread and where I had ordered “Seeded Malt Roll”, I was sent something made with white flour, which I refused and had sent back. I don’t understand how someone doesn’t know the difference, given that the ONLY search result on Tesco.com for “Seeded Malt Roll” is this:

A further search on Tesco.com by clicking on “view rest of shelf” on the Malt Rolls shows this item listed directly under the Malt Rolls:

This is called a “Seeded Spelt Roll” and appears to be what I had been sent. Now, in the picker’s defense, I could understand not knowing what Malt or Spelt meant. However, if I did not know, I would look it up or ask the people in the bakery department. It’s not a huge problem, I just refused the item and had it sent back. It did mea I was out some rolls for my Lunch, though.

But the biggest problem from yesterday was the driver forgetting an entire tray of chilled foods, including milk. The total amount missing was £14.62, which is a pretty decent chunk of our weekly groceries, considering this was all of our dairy products (milk, butter, yoghurt, cheese) and salad items (lettuce, tomato, spinach, mushrooms).

The driver couldn’t bring me the items but he was going to see if an afternoon van had space. Unfortunately, the afternoon and evening vans didn’t, and my only option was if his supervisor was *willing* to bring me my missing items in the afternoon. Like I said on Facebook, we live nearly an hour away from the grocery depot, so I couldn’t imagine the supervisor being willing to take over two hours out of his day to do this. When I received no call back, I rang up customer service and got a lovely woman named Tammy (wish I knew her last name!) who rang the store while I was on hold and unfortunately came back to tell me I wasn’t getting the items yesterday and was going to get a refund for those items. BUT, Tammy would put in an order for the missing items with a delivery for today, refund the delivery charge, and send me a voucher for the trouble it caused me. When I spoke with Tesco on Facebook, they also decided to give me a voucher as an apology for all the confusion this has caused.

You’d think that would be the end, right? Items would arrive, all would be well….you’d think wrong.

Tesco driver, Ashley, rang to tell me he was running late and would not be delivering my groceries until 10:30. I immediately contacted Tesco through facebook again to tell them, and I was offered another voucher for the problem.

When my order arrived…guess what? THEY SENT THE WRONG ROLLS AGAIN!! I was annoyed, but what puzzled me more was the grocery total. £25.32 when it should have been at the most £19.46. What happened? OH, apparently several of the items I had ordered were on a special offer that had expired yesterday. Fortunately, another phone call, this time speaking to a man named Alister, fixed the problem and got the delivery charge refunded.

In the end, Tesco sent me £30 in vouchers, plus refunded delivery charges. I think this is above and beyond anything I expected and I truly thank Tesco…because honestly? It’s the £30 in vouchers that is going to keep me a customer. Knowing that Tesco cares about their customers enough to go the extra mile is what will keep me coming back.

Thank you, Tesco. Thank you Jamie, Tammy, and Alister. But could you teach the pickers in Cleethorpes what Malt rolls look like?

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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I was reading the thread on We Survived Bush about MissM’s photo, and this gem of a comment about life in Europe popped up:

Have u been to Europe? If u consider greater quality of life living in places that are old, outdated, everything is compact and not to many modern conveniences, I guess maybe u should move there. Sorry, I like my new house, granite counter tops, having a new car every couple of yrs, etc..

And I can’t help but laugh. I think she watched Lord of the Rings and thinks we all live in dirt huts and dig holes to go to the bathroom. Or maybe she watched a film that takes place in East Germany in the 1960s. Or does she think we all live in massive, sprawling estates like Downton Abbey or in a castle like Hogwarts? I mean, seriously? Define modern conveniences. I have running water in my house, I have electricity. I have a phone line and I have a TV. I have a washing machine (that’s a combo with a dryer) and an electric shower. I also live in an 1840s farm house, but there are plenty of new builds popping up all over the place.

I also happen to have a coal-burning fire place and a coke-burning stove, but that’s also because I live in an 1840s farmhouse and we actually LIKE having a coal fire (don’t talk to me about the stove).

You can have central heating if you want, you can have dish washers, satellite TV, video gaming systems (we have a Wii), computers (writing this on my netbook, which is next to the desktop and I can see my husband’s laptop bag, too), mobile phones – sorry, cell phones…even iphones if you want ’em.

We have more brands of cars than are available in North America and hey – modern cars like Jaguar, Audi, Volvo, and Volkswagen are all made in Europe. All that AND a decent public transportation system. From my house, I can get to Germany in about 5 hours via public transit from London. Unless you live near the Canadian or Mexican border, can YOU get to a foreign country by train in 5 hours? Or drive through 5 countries in one day?

All that AND healthcare. The rest of the European Union will be much the same.

Tell me again how Europe doesn’t have modern conveniences?

Another comment I frequently see states that we have long waiting lists in England and they don’t want this happening in the US. Below is my reply.

The “waiting lists” here are no different than waiting in the US for your insurance to approve a specialist (which as I remember, can take months), but if you are faced with a life-threatening emergency, you will be put at the top of the queue. I needed non life-threatening emergency surgery in 2010. I was send to A&E (that’s the UK term for ER) by the after hours GP I went to see and stayed in the hospital for 3 days waiting for an open slot for surgery because I *could* wait. If it was life-or-death, they would have rolled me into surgery at 2 in the morning. The longest I personally have had to wait for an appointment has been one month, and I chalk that down just to availability as I received the appointment within one week of being told I needed it.

The thing you have to remember about the British society is that as a whole we tend to like to complain more than praise things. But I can tell you firsthand that the NHS works. My husband still has his father alive thanks to the NHS and his family has never had to worry about where the money was coming from to pay the bills from his kidney transplant. My husband’s best mate had his leg amputated due to an accident over 20 years ago, and he has to go to a special hospital to have a new leg fitted every two years or so and he never has to worry about not being able to feed his family because he has to have a stay n the hospital and a new leg so frequently.

I’m a housewife and an immigrant and I receive the same level of care as anyone else….and I’ve even contributed to the cost of the NHS as the NHS is partially funded through VAT (sales tax).

It’s such a relief to know that when my husband and I decide we are ready to start our family that we do no need to worry about the costs of giving birth or being able to afford doctors if there are complications during the pregnancy. So many of my friends in the US give birth and then are faced with thousands of dollars in hospital bills.

And birth control? FREE. No matter if you are a visitor, immigrant, or citizen.

Th NHS might not be perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than my options ever were when I lived in the US, including when I had HMO care through my job at a bank. Even with monthly premiums of over $300, I still had to pay loads out of pocket for a spinal tap to determine if I had MS (I don’t, thankfully), not to mention the follow-up care and subsequent ER visit when the pain relievers didn’t work!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

This is MissM:

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Once again, her photo is in the media. My guess is because of the upcoming election in the US.

Most recently it’s been on the “We Survived Bush, you Will Survive Obama” page on Facebook and then re-shared on the “Democrats Abroad” page as well as 4,500 other facebook users. nearly 30k have “liked” the photo (as of the time I’m writing this) and it has over 3,500 comments.

…and yet….out of that 30k, has anyone looked at the watermark on that image and gone to the URL? http://giveneyestosee.com/blog. It’s not even that hard to remember while you open up a new tab on facebook. I’ve also re-posted the links in the comments MULTIPLE times, as well as links to M’s interview with CNN and my previous posts about Miss M (each word is a separate link).

If EACH of those 30k….hell, if Half of the 30k donated a dollar to M’s fund, she would be able to completely pay off her medical bill debt.

Has anyone donated anything? Nope. Has anyone bothered to look at her online shop to purchase ANY of the gorgeous items she has there?

Nope.

And really, how sad is that? How sad is it that we as a modern society can feel the need to look at an image of a person in need, share it with our friends, and not bother to look into the full story? Or those who decide to JUDGE Miss M based on…nothing. I mean, I’m not going to quote comments on here, but some were downright hateful and made reference to things that simply were not true…some even called this image a lie or photoshopped and had claimed they had seen “this girl holding up other signs” (in which case, those must have been photoshopped).

I’ve been trying to comment every page or so with a link back to M’s blog, facebook page, or shop. Will anyone click on it? Will people get off their high horses long enough to actually do something to help out a fellow American in need? Hell, I bet my British friends have contributed more to M’s cause than ALL those people liking this photo put together.

Ways to Help
I am NOT asking you to donate money to aid Miss M, but if you’re in the market for some jewellery, please visit her site or Etsy shop. Christmas is coming, and I can vouch that her pieces are stunning. I myself own two trees of life and snowman earrings, my mom has a custom bracelet, and my mother-in-law received a nestlace (bird’s nest pendant) that Miss M personalized with an un-heard of SEVEN birthstone pearls for her children and children-in-laws. I also have many one of a kind pieces Miss M has gifted to me over the years, including some lovely purple earrings I wear all the time and a red and gold beaded bookmark.

If you do want to donate, you can do so via both PayPal and GoFundMe.

Other links you might find useful:

Her Blog: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog

PhoenixFunds: http://PhoenixFunds.etsy.com

PhoenixFireDesigns on Etsy: http://PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com

PhoenixFire Designs: http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog.]

[The pink line indicates the route of the number 3 bus]

I had a fun adventure today.

Tim dropped me off in town at the top of the hill on his way to work so I could get photos of Sophie Wells‘ Gold Post Box (post later AND my paralympic post later) and then walk down the hill to run some errands.

I missed catching the 1650 bus back home by about 2 minutes. I didn’t want the 1720 because it takes too long, but between the 1720 and the 1750 there is a Number 3 that goes from Lincoln to Grimsby via Market Rasen that happens to pass through Dunholme (though it does it backwards so it goes Welton – Dunholme, instead of Dunholme – Welton like the 11/12). I got on, paid my fare, and got out my Kindle to read. My landmark for pressing the stop button when I go from Welton to Dunholme is the green fence around the primary school and/or the 20mph school zone section as it’s hard to miss even if you’re not paying attention between the jagged no parking lines across the road and the high fence. I glanced up partway through the journey, and we were in Nettleham (another nearby village). The 3 goes through Nettleham and out the back way via the police station, so I knew I still had plenty of time. The next time I looked up (might have been 10-15 minutes later), all I could see was shrubs and trees lining either side of the road. I assumed we were either on the A46 between Nettleham and Welton or on the road back to Welton, so I kept glancing out for familiar landmarks like the garage turn off on the A46, William Farr Secondary School, The Welton Co-op, Welton Village Hall, the mini roundabout, and of course, St Chad’s primary school and the green fence.

Never saw ANY of those places. I don’t even recall going through the mini roundabout in Dunholme by the pub (which is past my stop, but there’s still another stop before it turns back on to the A46). I suddenly saw the turn off for Toft-next-Newton, Newton-by-Toft and Newtoft (No, I’m not making that up!). I got confused, but thought maybe there was some odd backroads way into Welton I was unfamiliar with since I don’t usually use the Number 3 and in fact had only ridden it one other time out of Lincoln and that was after I had had an eye exam so I had to ask the driver to tell me when we were in Dunholme since I couldn’t see.

Anyway, he next village we went through was Faldingworth. I’m not too good with local village geography, but I knew Faldingworth was nearish to Welton, so again, I thought perhaps this was some back-roads way of getting into Welton and then Dunholme. I did send a text to Tim that said “Where am I? Am I lost? Passing through Faldingsworth!!”, but I wasn’t panicked. Yet.

The bus turned off into Middle Rasen….and then I panicked. Well, ok, not really. But I did start to think something had gone wrong, so I texted Tim again to let him know that I had somehow totally missed Dunholme and was on my way to Market Rasen where I hoped there would be a bus in the opposite direction for me to take back, or I’d have to take a taxi (it’s 9 miles). I also at this point really hoped I had enough money in my purse to handle the resulting bus fare from having the wrong ticket!

When the bus got to Market Rasen, I made sure I was the last person off and I talked to the driver. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I don’t know what happened, but I managed to completely miss the bus going through Dunholme. Is there a bus going back or do I need to find a taxi?
Driver: There will be one shortly going back, but it’s the last bus of the day. The stop is across the street [points].
Me: Thank you. And I owe you the difference from Dunholme to Market Rasen.
Driver: Don’t worry about it. OH, there’s the bus, you better hurry.

I thanked him again and ran across the street with my shopping trolley heaving with heavy bottles of water and managed to flag down the bus at the last minute.

Me: Single to Dunholme please. I managed to miss my stop.
Driver: Don’t worry about it.
Me: Thank you.

And this time, I PAID ATTENTION (and also had a text from Tim telling me what time the bus was expected in Dunholme and to set an alarm in case I got lost in a book again).

Uhm….oooops!!!

So, the moral of the story is: Always pay attention to where you are going when riding an unfamiliar bus route. Although I do wonder if the bus driver hadn’t somehow neglected to drive through the two villages as well, but I somehow doubt that he’d have been able to get away with doing that, so I really must have been off in la-la book land!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/